22 April 2014: Santorini, Greece

Santorini is a picture-postcard Greek Island, one of the more spectacular sights in the Aegean, a half-circle of steep cliffs topped with two horizontal towns of white and blue.

Oh, and one more thing: It’s a picture-perfect Greek island that also sits atop a ticking time bomb. The cliffs are actually the rim of a huge volcano.[whohit]-Santorini 22Apr-[/whohit]

A huge dormant—not dead, just sleeping—volcano.

Santorini and a few surrounding fragments are essentially the remains of an enormous volcanic explosion that destroyed the earliest settlements on a single island.

The homeland of the Minoan culture was on the island of Crete, and the famed palace complex of Knossos is one of the wonders of the Aegean.

This Bronze Age civilization thrived between 3000 to 2000 BC, and reached its peak in the period 2000 to 1580 BC.

What happened about 1500 BC? The big boom on Thera; the volcano on Santorini.

Excavations begun in 1967 on Santorini have established its importance as one of the outlying centers of the Minoan culture.

A SANTORINI ALBUM. All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

SCENES OF AKROTIRI ON SANTORINI. All photos by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved.

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